


Shadows

by rhienelleth



Series: Illusions [5]
Category: Alias
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-24
Updated: 2010-03-24
Packaged: 2017-10-08 07:17:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhienelleth/pseuds/rhienelleth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SD-6 is finally taken down, but Arvin Sloane has plans of his own that threaten everything between Sydney and Sark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Final installment in the Illusions series.

_London, England_

 

In the darkness, he held her. 

 

His arms wrapped around her lean, firmly toned body, his fingers brushing lightly down the contrasting softness of feminine curves.  It was always surprising, somehow, that hint of softness, of vulnerability in this woman.  She had such strength. 

 

He felt scars beneath his hands, a rough dimpling of skin that marred an otherwise perfect form.  Grim, enduring reminders of past pain, past mistakes. 

 

Some were old, vestiges of a youth spent in tomboy-hood; a girl raised in the shadow of her intimidating father, bereft of the gentler influence a mother’s touch could bring.  Some were more recent, the scars of a woman leading a dangerous life – the faint line of a knife wound here, the puckered flesh of a bullet entry there.  Some were new, even to him, the man who knew her body with intimate thoroughness.

 

And some, he had given her.

 

Even now -- listening to her slow breathing beside him, his body languid with the release of tension that only came from truly spectacular sex -- he felt the scars beneath his fingertips, and grim reality intruded. 

 

The reality of living a life without a future.  _God_, he decided, _has one twisted sense of humor._ 

 

He’d finally found a woman he loved.  He’d never expected to, had deliberately and knowingly avoided any and all personal attachments over the years.  But even he had not anticipated Sydney Bristow’s influence on his life.  And the real bitch of it was, she loved him back.  Even the dark, murkier shadows of his soul. 

 

And somewhere, God was laughing His ass off.  Because in the life they led, people didn’t have futures.  They had the present, the _now_, and if they were really lucky, they lived to see tomorrow. 

 

But you never looked beyond that.  Not if you wanted to survive.  Physically and emotionally. 

 

The man who called himself Andrew Sark was royally fucked in both departments, unless this life of shadows and games ended very soon.  Not that he regretted loving Sydney, exactly.  But he knew that loving her had cost him something, a sacrifice of distance, of that cool edge that came from simply not giving a damn about anything but the job.  He’d already made too many excuses for himself, run too many risks just to see her, be with her, and if something didn’t give soon, he was well on his way to making a mistake worth his life.

 

Or worse, hers.  And he couldn’t, wouldn’t live with that. 

 

He lay still beside her for another hour, stroking her skin with feather light touches, listening to her breathe in the darkness.  Then he rose silently from the bed, shrugging into a terry cloth robe.  He left the bedroom, pausing in the doorway to glance back at Sydney as light lanced in and lit up the tangle of bedcovers.  Her hair lay spread over his pillow, her cheek nestled against her curled hands.  Dark circles of weariness outlined her eyes, testament of the many sleepless nights before this one.  Nights, he’d wager, spent worrying about him, about SD-6, about the Alliance, about Irina. 

 

He closed the door gently so as not to wake her, his resolve firming. 

 

“Not for much longer, love,” he murmured aloud, and crossed to the hotel phone.  “Because I’m going to end it, for all of us.”

 

 

_One Week Later _

_Los Angeles, California_

 

The ruins of _Credit Dauphine _lay all around them, evidence of the massive CIA raid scattered over the floor in shattered glass and strewn files, now largely redundant.  The haze from the smoke grenades had finally cleared, and teams of agents garbed in black fatigues and body armor swept through the building, clearing each room. 

 

Sydney could hear them over her ear piece, a buzz of voices back and forth, each one another nail in the coffin of SD-6 and the Alliance.  Her father brushed past her, saying something crisp and stern into his own headset, cupping a hand over his ear.  He caught her eye as he passed, paused long enough to give her a tiny nod before moving on. 

 

It could have meant anything, but she knew what it was.  She and Jack Bristow had long ago learned the art of silent communication.  In the lives they’d chosen to lead, such skills were a matter of survival. 

 

It could have meant “good job”, or “don’t worry, you’re friends will be all right”, referring to Dixon and Marshall, and other innocents who had unknowingly worked as traitors to their country.  But it didn’t.  That nod meant something else entirely, something personal and private, and from her father, unexpected.

 

_He was right_, that nod said.  _He did his job, got it done, came through for all of us.  _Deep down, that tiny acknowledgement wasn’t for her at all.  It was for the man who’d given them what they needed to succeed today.  The man who, half a world away, led teams of MI-6 and MI-5 agents against the remnants of the Alliance. 

 

_Well done, Sark.  _They were words her father couldn’t yet bring himself to say.  But he would. 

 

Sydney took a shuddering breath, feeling a knot somewhere in the vicinity of her heart loosen, and finally dissolve.  A knot she’d carried within her for months, now.  _Maybe,_ she thought, smiling wryly after her father, _there’s hope for us, after all._

“Hey, Syd.” 

 

Weiss was suddenly beside her, beaming and practically bouncing with excitement.  The black fatigues and Kevlar looked out of place on him, his warm features and soft frame far more comfortable in an ill fitting suit than in field gear.  But he carried his MP5K in a casually one handed grip, and a realization hit her suddenly, hard in the gut. 

 

She stared at him.  Three years ago, even two, and Agent Eric Weiss would have been neither familiar nor comfortable with a submachine gun in his hand. 

 

“Whoa!” Weiss staggered back a step when she suddenly threw her arms around him in a tight hug, careful not to entangle his gun hand.  “Hey, Syd, it’s ok…” he said awkwardly, patting her shoulders with his left hand.  “It’s finally over.”

 

“Yeah…” she said softly.  To her shock, she felt the warmth of tears sliding down her face.  “It’s over.  I wish…I wish we hadn’t lost so many casualties along the way.”

 

And Weiss, who knew better than most all that Sydney had lost, pulled away and looked at her with eyes that glimmered suspiciously in the flickering overhead lights. 

 

“Me, too,” he said simply, “me too, Syd.”

 

A crackling noise from her radio broke the suddenly maudlin mood for both of them.  Jack Bristow’s sharp voice reeled off orders in her ear, and Sydney smiled reassuringly as she waved Weiss off. 

 

“Sydney,” Jack said with his usual implacable calm, “we’ve had reports of stragglers attempting to escape via the parking garage.  I’m experiencing some interference raising the two teams we left stationed there.”

 

She wiped away the vestiges of her tears surreptitiously, and started for the front of the building.  “On my way,” she said, and stepped her pace up to an easy lope across the room and into the elevator.  She gestured to two agents loitering in its vicinity.  “You and you, with me.”

 

Weiss watched her go, watched her reclaim that stoic professionalism she seemed to don as easily as an article of clothing, and smiled in admiration.  _Michael would be proud of what we’ve accomplished here today,_ he thought, nearly growing misty eyed at the thought of his dead friend again.  _He’d be proud of Syd, of me.  _

 

He surveyed the damaged room one last time, thinking that tonight would be a good night for a six pack of Black Butte and a pizza from Cirello’s.  His own private celebration feast. 

 

He supervised the extraction of former SD-6 employees, all of them confused, frightened, angry.  They still didn’t understand that the company they’d been working for was not the CIA at all.  He sighed as the reality of the work yet to be done loomed ahead of him.

 

And he didn’t think of Sydney again until her father came looking.

 

“Have you seen Sydney?” Jack asked as Weiss checked off yet another name from his PDA list of SD-6 employees. 

 

He looked up, and felt the first frisson of fear pass through him.  Jack’s voice was even, his face its usual expressionless mask, and yet…something about his eyes was troubled.  Weiss frowned. 

 

“Not since you ordered her to the parking garage,” he said, shrugging.

 

“Not since…I…” Jack Bristow’s voice trailed away, and his face froze.  He didn’t waste time with more words, but turned on his heel and ran for the elevator.  Weiss was only three steps behind, but he barely made it in before Jack’s hand on the control panel slammed the doors shut. 

 

“Come on, come on!”  Bristow glared at the electronic numbers above the elevator doors, apparently willing them to move faster. 

 

“I take it,” said Weiss with a sinking feeling in his gut, “you didn’t order Sydney to the parking garage.” 

 

“No,” said Jack tersely, and Weiss felt the sinking feeling drop like a stone.

 

“But it was _your voice_ on her headset,” he insisted numbly, willing it to be so.   
 “I could hear it.”

 

Bristow focused on him, and the ferocity of his gaze had Weiss stumbling back. 

 

“Could you?” the other man asked bitterly, sardonically.  “As if there is no one and no device in this world capable of imitating my voice, once a sufficient sample has been recorded?”

 

Weiss winced.  It was true, of course.  In the world of espionage and counter espionage, all manner of electronic mimicry was constantly being perfected.

 

Finally the elevator stopped, the doors sliding open, and the two men exited, following all of the textbook strategies for effectively clearing an area.  Not that the effort was needed.  Every member of the two teams left to guard the exit point were down, including the two agents Weiss had seen Sydney take with her into the elevator.  A brief examination proved they were all still alive and breathing, but drugged. 

 

Jack Bristow strode from body to body, cursing steadily louder as he went, an uncharacteristic display of emotion for him.  Sydney was not among them.  He came across the empty gas canister used to drug twelve agents, and kicked it so viciously, it ricocheted all the way across the garage.  The metallic, echoing ping of its journey resounded into the silence for a long moment. 

 

Jack stood with his head bowed, hand pressed to his eyes.  He finally looked up at Weiss, his face bleak and empty.  He said the words unnecessarily, but as if he needed the verbal validation of what their eyes had already told them.

 

“She’s gone.”

 

_London, England_

 

Something, a sound, reverberated through the blackness that shrouded his mind.  It was insistent, repetitive, and forced him to struggle up through the layers of deep, exhausted slumber into reluctant wakefulness.  Even then, it took him an uncharacteristically long time to identify the ringing of his phone.  And even longer to fumble his hand over the receiver and pick it up.

 

“ ‘Lo?”

 

Even through the groggy haze that still slowed his thinking, it occurred to Sark that the phone must have been ringing for a very long time, and thus, the call must be important. A quick glance at his bedside clock told him he’d barely been asleep for an hour, and his mood darkened accordingly.  _It better be bloody important,_ he thought grimly.  This was his first real sleep in nearly seventy-two hours. 

 

“Sark.  We have a problem.” 

 

It was Bristow, and the tension in the other man’s voice had Sark sitting up in bed, grogginess fading beneath a surge of adrenaline.  It spoke volumes that even that natural drug could only stir him to a sluggish awareness.

 

“Jack, what’s wrong?  The operation?” 

 

“Went as planned.  Mostly.  Sloane…escaped capture.”

 

“Damn!”  Anger followed adrenaline, had him curling his hand into a fist and slamming it into his thigh.  “Bugger-all, the bastard _would_ slip through the cracks.”

 

Sark tossed back the covers, already slipping from the bed. 

 

“Give me a minute here, Jack.  Just let me get a swallow or two of coffee into my system, and you can fill me in.”

 

 

He ignored the way his legs seemed to shake slightly as he crossed to the small kitchen his apartment boasted.  Just a hit or three of caffeine, and he’d be fine…

 

“Andrew, Sloane isn’t why I’m calling,” Jack told him reluctantly, and Sark stopped with his hand halfway to the coffeepot.  Bristow never, _never_ called him by his first name.  His heart began a painful pounding in his chest, and he wet suddenly dry lips with the tip of his tongue.  He had to clear his throat before he could speak.

 

“Then…why?” he asked, already knowing, already fearing the answer.

 

“It’s Sydney.  She’s gone.  Vanished.”  Sark could almost hear Jack’s mouth thin with displeasure as the words spilled across the connection.  “Taken, we’re pretty sure.”

 

The silence stretched, and he carefully put his still empty coffee cup down on the counter; his hand was shaking badly enough to drop it if he didn’t. 

 

“By…who?” he managed, the words barely recognizable.  “Sloane?”

 

“We don’t know.  At this point, we’re pretty sure she’s still alive.  They’d have killed her and left her body for us to find if she wasn’t useful to them somehow.”

 

“Of course.” 

 

It seemed as though everything he said came out sounding faint and far away.  Sark took two steps to the kitchen table, sinking blindly into a chair.  His left hand sat on the table top, clenched into a tight fist, the muscles of his arm taut from wrist to shoulder.  He took a moment to master himself before speaking again.  _After all of this, everything we’ve survived, and now, at the end, when we should be rejoicing in our newfound freedom…_

 

“I’ll be there as soon as I’m able, Jack.  I’ll call you, but I imagine it’ll be roughly eight hours from now.  You can meet me at the airport.”

 

“I’ve already checked.  The earliest flight from London to L.A. doesn’t leave until noon today.”

 

“Yes, well, I won’t be traveling commercial air,” Sark answered, his tone just a touch acerbic.  “Meet me at Los Angeles International.  I’ll call you with the definitive time.”

 

He hung up before Bristow could reply, catapulting himself from his chair and back into the bedroom.  He pulled open drawers, flung wide closet doors, grabbing articles of clothing more-or-less at random.  He found his cell phone lying on the dresser and scooped it up into his hand, dialing a number from memory, and praying it hadn’t changed in the last ten years. 

 

It rang, and rang, and on the sixth ring, a familiar voice answered.

 

“Collins?” asked Sark by reflex, even though he knew the man’s voice nearly as well as his own.  “Yes, it’s Andrew…yes, I know I’ve been out of touch for some years…yes, I know…_no_!  _Don’t_ tell Mother.  Please, Collins, you know how she’ll be, and I _really_ don’t have time for this now.” 

 

Sark waited, less than patiently, while the other man filled his ears with a lecture on duty to family, responsibility to title, all of the things he’d left behind by fudging his age and joining the military at fifteen.  He practically bit through his tongue to keep from verbally flaying a man who’d always been kind to him. 

 

“All _right_, Collins.  I’ll call her as soon as I get back…look, I couldn’t have contacted anyone until this morning, in any case.  I’ve been working…yes, deep cover, classified, the whole bollocks.  You know the drill.” 

 

And Nathaniel Collins certainly did.  He had, after all, once entertained a young, impressionable Andrew with stories of his own colorful days as an agent. 

 

“Look,” Sark interrupted, his patience finally snapping.  “I’ve no _time _for this.  A friend of mine – a colleague – is in danger.  Her life is…very important to me.  I need a favor.”  And he explained exactly what he needed, and where. 

 

He was out the door in under ten minutes, travel bag in hand, SIG fastened snugly in a shoulder holster beneath his trench coat.  He still wore the same T-shirt and black fatigues, having foregone changing in favor of time.  Time, after all, might be the only thing he had going for him.  Every hour that passed was one less hour he had to reach Sydney while she still lived.  He knew it, from training, from hard experience, from every damn class they’d ever made him sit through on kidnappings and hostage situations.  The clock was ticking, had been ticking since the moment she’d been taken. 

 

He no longer needed coffee to get him moving.  All he could see in his mind were images of Sydney, and none of them were good.  Reaching into a pocket, he pulled out his cell phone, and dialed a second number from memory.

 

Sometimes it was necessary to deal with the Devil.

 

±

_Fire.  _

_It flickered down every nerve ending in her body, flaring up into agony every time she dared move, seeming to radiate from her gut, her abdomen.  She moaned.  Dear God, what had they given her?  A drug, yes. She was reasonably certain they hadn’t meant to kill her with it, whatever it was.  But she thought she might die, anyway.  _

_She tried to speak, tried to call out for help, to tell them that whatever drug they’d injected into her body was causing a violent reaction.  But she couldn’t breath, could barely gasp as sweat dripped down her brow, matting her hair and covering her skin with a thin layer of damp.  She didn’t know where she was.  Couldn’t see.  Could barely hear.  All of her other senses seemed totally overridden by the pain receptors in her body.  Everything was feel, and what she felt made her weep.  _

_Even that small release caused more pain, and she found herself spiraling, falling back into the welcome dark of oblivion._

 

_Los Angeles, California_

 

Jack Bristow was waiting when the private jet landed at Los Angeles International Airport.  Not calmly, not patiently, but with a low simmering rage that lurked just below the surface. 

 

Ten hours since Sydney’s disappearance, and he didn’t have one fucking lead to go on.  Not him, not the CIA.  No one had a single, goddamn thing.

 

His daughter’s only hope, he thought fiercely, was in finding Sloane, _if_ he’d been the one to take her.  _God, I hope so._  Sloane had always had a soft spot for Sydney, and if she was now his prisoner, chances were she was still alive, and would be kept relatively unharmed for as long as possible. 

 

Jack hoped.

 

He waited until the door to the plane swung open, then started across the tarmac.  Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, the single part of his brain that wasn’t obsessively occupied with his daughter’s disappearance, made a mental note to find out how, exactly, Sark had gotten his hands on the Talbot family jet. 

 

The two men met halfway, and shared a brief handclasp, a squeeze of fingers that acknowledged to one another their status as allies.  Face to face meetings between the two had never been precisely smooth. 

 

“Sark,” Jack greeted neutrally. 

 

Privately, he thought the other man looked like hell.  His face was paler than it should have been, his eyes haggard and underscored by dark smudges of weariness.  A fine stubble darkened his jaw and chin, the first time in memory that Jack had ever seen him less than perfectly groomed.  And he wasn’t wearing one of his endless array of tasteful suits, but a rumpled set of military fatigues that looked as though he’d been wearing them for days. 

 

“Jack,” Sark said, and gestured to the plane being refueled on the runway behind him.  “We’ll be ready for take off in about fifteen minutes.  I suggest you make any necessary calls, and we get onboard.”

 

“I thought I was meeting you here,” Jack said with undisguised surprise, “to take you back to our field office.” 

 

“Why would we go there?”  Sark frowned, and shook his head impatiently.  “Your daughter’s not in L.A., Jack.  We aren’t going to get her back by sitting around on our asses, waiting.”

 

Jack bristled at Sark’s tone.  He had to remind himself, forcibly, that this man loved his daughter, and was obviously running on too little sleep. 

 

“Fine,” he said, the word practically bitten off.  But it was as polite as he could manage.  He forced himself to begin walking toward the plane.  “Then why don’t you tell me where we’re going?”

 

“When we’re onboard, I’ll be happy to explain everything,” Sark replied, and quickened his pace. 

 

Jack swallowed back a disgruntled comment.  More than anything, he hated not being in control of this situation.  It was _his _daughter, damn it, and she’d disappeared on _his_ watch.  It was his responsibility to find her, and he’d worked ceaselessly, if fruitlessly, since her disappearance to do just that.  It burned that Sark may have accomplished more in the short time since Jack had called him.  _Pride,_ he reminded himself firmly, _is dangerous.  It doesn’t matter who finds Sydney and gets her back, just so long as we do._

 

He followed Sark onboard the private jet, ignoring the smiling attendant who ushered them in and pulled shut the door behind them.  He ground his teeth as Sark crossed to a bar carved from what looked like mahogany, and poured two tumblers of scotch.  The seconds ticked by, and Jack managed to wait nearly thirty of them before losing his patience.

 

“So, we’re onboard, Sark.”  He gestured to the leather covered seats, the bar, the opulent interior of the cabin.  “Why don’t you fill me in on exactly how we’re going to find my daughter.”

 

Sark half turned, both glasses in hand, and opened his mouth to reply – but he wasn’t the one to answer Jack’s question. 

 

“A tracking device,” said an all too familiar, all too sultry feminine voice from the direction of the pilot’s cabin.  Shadows from the tiny walkway hid her face, while the softer lighting of the larger room outlined the slim lines of her form. 

 

A form Jack knew very, very well. 

 

He tried to speak, to ask what the _fuck_ Irina Derevko was doing here, but the words wouldn’t come.  Shock had robbed him of breath, of speech.  She smiled, a sensuous curve of lips as she stepped into the light.

 

“Hello, Jack.”

 

Sark glanced from one of them to the other, sipping his scotch.  As Jack watched, he held the other glass out to Irina, who crossed the cabin and took it from him with a smile of thanks.  It seemed personal, somehow, that smile.  Intimate, even.  He wasn’t aware that he’d closed his hands into fists until his nails bit painfully into the flesh of his palms.

 

Irina looked directly into his eyes, and smiled.  The bitch. 

 

“Sark planted a tracking device on her some months back,” she explained, “fearing that something like this, or similar, might very well happen.”

 

Jack finally found his voice, and an outlet for some of his anger.  He rounded on Sark.

 

“A tracking device?” he asked, low and furious.  “Did Sydney know about this?”

 

The other man glanced down into his drink, having the grace to look at least a little shame faced.

 

“Not exactly,” he said. 

 

“And how, _exactly_, did you manage to plant a tracking device _without her knowledge_, that you can guarantee will still be on her and functioning several months later?”

 

Sark looked up, met his eyes squarely, and didn’t answer.  He took a very slow, very deliberate drink from his glass.  Irina laughed, a low sound that grated along Jack’s nerves, even as it sent a frisson of memory through his body.  It was the same laugh she’d used in the dark, with him, so many years ago. 

 

“Come, come, Jack.  You can hardly expect a man to discuss such things with his lover’s father…he planted the device using the same technique _you _might have used once…with me.  Some activities can be quite…distracting, after all.”  She arched a knowing brow at him, and Jack looked away.

 

“What the hell is she doing here?” he asked Sark finally, the words hissed between clenched teeth.

 

“She knows Sloane better than either of us, Jack – no, don’t argue.  You might think you know him better.  Fine.  Believe that if you wish.  It is _my _belief that Irina knows Sloane and his goals, and what he might want with Sydney, better than either one of us.”

 

“You can’t trust her!  We’ve been working against her organization just as surely as we have against the Alliance these last months – make that years.”

 

Irina sat in one of the leather seats and placed her drink beside her.  She didn’t appear concerned with the conversation, but Jack knew she was calculatedly memorizing every word.

 

True,” said Sark, “but I believe a mother’s love for her daughter outweighs all other considerations in this instance.”

 

“A mother’s love?  Are you _blind_?  Jesus, you worked for her for _years_.  You should damn well know how devoid this woman is of love.”

 

“You think so?  I did work for her, and I’ll tell you what I remember about Irina and her daughter.  She never allowed Sydney to come to harm, even when it might have jeopardized her own plans.  Standing orders were never to hurt Sydney more than superficially.”  He paused, toying with his glass where it sat on the bar.  “And she turned a blind eye when I started seeing her daughter, despite the ramifications it might have had.”  He glanced in her direction.  “Despite the compromised loyalty of a senior member of her organization.”

 

Irina shrugged, a delicate movement of shoulders, and sent him a coy glance.  “You and I have already discussed your….changeable loyalties, Sark.  And Sydney had nothing to do with them, did she?”

 

_So, _Jack thought, _she knows, now at least, about Sark and British Intel._

 

“I observed you with Sydney,” she added, “for some time.  I tested you, and your feelings for her.  And concluded that my daughter’s happiness was more important to me than your potential usefulness.”  She looked up at him.  “You, after all, are replaceable to me.  You clearly weren’t to her.  If you hadn’t vanished when you did, I would have taken steps to remove you from my cartel.”

 

Jack snorted in sheer disbelief. 

 

“You expect me to believe that you give a damn about Sydney’s happiness?  You’d have cut loose one of your top operatives – _and_ an agent you could have used to feed the British government misinformation -- simply so she could keep her lover?”

 

Irina cut her eyes to him, expression and voice going cold.  She looked, for the first time since she’d entered the room, exactly like the Irina who’d betrayed her husband and daughter.

 

“No,” she said simply, “not so Sydney could keep her lover.  Because _being _her lover meant I could no longer trust Sark, even in his predictable capacity as a double agent.  Emotional attachments are too dangerous in our business, Jack.  Smart people don’t have them, but for Sark, it was too late.”  She glanced at the other man again.  “I saw that clearly enough when you killed Mariknikauff.”

 

“Marikni…” Several things fell into place for Jack.  He turned to Sark, frowning.  “_You_ killed the Russian?  He died right after that mission Sydney did in Rome…the meeting she had with him, and you.”

 

“That’s right,” said Sark neutrally. 

 

He picked up his glass again, took a drink.  He didn’t look at either of them, but Jack recognized the expression on the other man’s face.  He’d been known to wear it himself, when his daughter’s safety was threatened. 

 

Irina smiled, and said conversationally, “Yes, he killed Mariknikauff.  Moments after the man had insulted Sydney.”

 

Sark rounded on her, eyes bright with anger.

 

“He _struck_ her!  Hard enough to bruise.  And threatened her life.”  He paused, mastered himself, and looked away again.  He played with his glass, turning it around in his hands.  “He would have followed through, just to get back at you, Irina.  He hated you.”  He finished off his scotch in one long swallow, and turned his back to them.  “Killing him was easy,” he muttered.

 

Irina looked at Jack, arched a single brow.  “There, you see?  He was in love with her then, even if he didn’t yet know it.  From that evening on, I knew that Sark had become a liability.  He had to be used carefully and sparingly until I could safely remove him.”  She smiled widely at him.  A simple, pure, beautiful smile that tightened Jack’s chest like a fist around his heart.  “But then, you did that for me, Jack.  And Sark was no longer my problem.”

 

He opened his mouth to refute – yet again – that Irina Derevko was a lying bitch who could not, under any circumstances, be trusted, when the pilot’s voice suddenly came over the intercom.

 

“We’re prepared for take off, sir.  If you and your guests could take a seat and fasten seat belts, we’ll be on our way.”

 

Sark hit a button on the wall beside him, and spoke into the speaker above it.  “Thank-you, Isaac.  Keep me informed of our estimated arrival time.” 

 

He crossed and sat beside Irina, who had already fastened her own seatbelt.  Jack was quite sure the choice of seats had not been accidental.  Sark was telling him in no uncertain terms that he trusted Irina.  At least for now. 

_Damn it to hell!  _ Jack hesitated briefly, feeling the plane’s engines powering up as the cabin began to vibrate.  He finally sat, disgruntled and angry, refusing to acknowledge Irina’s openly amused expression. 

 

Whatever Sark might think, he wasn’t taking his eyes off the woman.  She always, _always_ worked her own agenda, and this time would be no different.

 

±

 

_She woke feeling parched and weak, her body aching as though she’d suffered a thorough beating.  From a crowbar.  _

_She groaned, eyes fluttering open, and saw nothing to reassure her.  The room was black.  No light reflected anywhere to give her a sense of space, or to see herself by.  She could feel restraints biting into wrists, ankles, biceps.  Her hands were stretched above her head, her feet fastened securely to the foot of whatever hard slab they’d placed her on.  She could hear her heart beat, her own breathing, but nothing else.  _

_At least her nerves weren’t on fire any more.  But the residual ache was bad enough.  And she could barely lift her head.  Once she took stock, the restraints seemed laughably redundant.  And she still felt pain.  She hurt as though someone had punched her, hard in the gut, a number of times.  Followed by repeated kicking about the legs, back, and pelvis.  She could well imagine the black and blue marks she must have.  _I hope, _she thought wearily, _nothing’s broken. 

 

_Trying to swallow, but finding her throat too dry to manage, she wondered dully if she might die of dehydration.  She had no idea how long she’d been without water, or when someone might come for her.  A strange lethargy seemed to make her limbs heavy, made her wonder about death with a kind of detached numbness, as if her own life were only of mild interest to her.  She thought briefly of Sark, her father, Francie…but couldn’t work up the will to fight for them.  _

_She had no sense of time, and her mind wandered listlessly until a sudden sliver of light opened up in the dark, blinding her.  _

A door,_ she thought, feeling a surge of equal parts exhilaration and fear.  A door meant freedom, but it also meant someone was coming for her.  Perhaps to hurt her more._

_She thought, with a feeling of dull dread, that she’d have preferred death._

 

±

 

_Thessaly, Greece_

Sark stood on the edge of the bluff, letting the wind buffet his face and whip through his hair.  His eyes watered with the force of it, but he didn’t mind.  He needed the stinging pain to keep him alert.  The few, small hours of sleep he’d managed on the plane had been fitful, at best.  His mind wouldn’t stop showing him images of Sydney, and all of the horrible things that she could be undergoing at Sloane’s hands.

 

“So this is it?” Jack asked, coming to stand beside him.  “Sydney’s somewhere in this valley.”  He sounded doubtful. 

 

Sark didn’t bother turning to look at the other man, but pulled a PDA from his trench coat pocket and touched a button with his thumb.

 

“Yes,” he said a moment later, glancing up from the small screen.  “She hasn’t moved in nearly six hours.  She’s here.  In fact…”  He lifted  a hand and turned his body slightly, so that the wind ruffled his hair sideways.  He sighted down his arm like he was pointing a gun.  “…there aren’t many roads here to make tracking easy, but my best guess is we’ll find her there.”

 

“There?”  Jack squinted.  “I don’t see anything but a damn tall cliff.”

 

“Tsk, Jack,” said Irina, from close by his elbow.  She’d just come up to stand behind the two men, though Sark noted that Jack seemed to know precisely where she was at all times; he didn’t, for example, flinch away from her sudden presence beside him.  Sark was sure he wanted to.  “Don’t you know your geography?  You’ve been to Greece many times, and yet you aren’t familiar with this part of Thessaly?”

 

Sark saw Jack’s jaw clench.  It was something of an amusement to see the unflappable Jack Bristow actually flustered.  Or as close as the man ever came to it. 

 

“There’s something special about that cliff, I take it?” Bristow ground out.

 

“It isn’t just a cliff, Jack,” explained Irina with the patience of one lecturing a child.  Sark bit the inside of his cheek, trapped between humor and irritation.  “It’s one of the _meteorisa monastiria_, abandoned long ago as too difficult to maintain.”  She stopped, looking at her ex-husband expectantly.

 

For a moment, Sark believed Jack might actually slap her.  Instead, he tucked his hands into the pockets of his jacket – to restrain himself, Sark thought – and said in a  carefully even tone,  “Hanging monasteries?”

 

“Exactly!”  She smiled like he’d won a prize.  Jack looked like he wanted to strangle her, and Sark could empathize with the feeling.  Except he wanted to strangle both of them.  Honestly, their daughter’s life was hanging in the balance, while they bickered, and baited one another! 

 

Irina started to lecture, like a professor teaching a class, and Sark’s mood grew darker with every word to pass her lips. 

 

“They’re monasteries built on top of inaccessible rock cliffs by pious monks during the 14th and 15th centuries, though the tradition began much farther back.  In the 9th century, monks began living out of caves in these cliffs, and as their population grew, so did their need for shelter.  Hence, the _meteorisa monastiria_.  They are masterpieces.  Works of art built by the painstaking labor of simple men, most of the structures long abandoned, now, and accessible only by very difficult means.”

 

She shot a glance at Sark, but he ignored her.  He wasn’t going to give anything away until he absolutely had to.  He trusted her….to a point.  He saw Jack open his mouth to say something to Irina, saw her turn back to say something to Jack, and lost his tenuous grasp on patience.

 

“Entertaining as this is,” he intervened, stepping decisively between them, “I believe we have work to do.  Your daughter needs you.”  He glared at them both.“I’ll place a call, get what we’re going to need.  Irina, if you would be so kind as to gather the packs of gear I stowed on the plane.  Jack.”  He looked over Irina’s head, met the other man’s eyes.  He tossed him a small pair of high powered binoculars he’d been planning on using himself.  “Scout the area.”

 

Jack hesitated, clearly disgruntled at taking orders from Sark, but with a last glance at Irina’s retreating form, he nodded once and walked away.  Sark breathed a sigh of relief.  He needed to think, and he couldn’t do that very well with the two of them bickering back and forth like children.  He’d be sure to tell Sydney that she hadn’t missed much by growing up without both of her parents. 

 

“Like bloody teenagers, both of them,” he muttered, and turned back to study the structure he believed housed the woman he loved.  At least four hundred feet up a sheer rock cliff on all sides, it was not one of the four hanging monasteries still open to tourists.  Because you couldn’t get to it from the ground.  In older times, the monks would have hoisted one another from the bottom of the cliff to the top with pulleys and baskets, but such a device would not do for them.  He lifted his eyes to study the azure blue of the sky above the monastery, thinking. 

 

_There will be guards.  Guns.  Look outs watching for any kind of insertion attempt.  _He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face, the rough feel of stubble reminding him that he hadn’t shaved in too long. 

 

He hadn’t done a night drop in years.  They weren’t fun at the best of times, but parachuting in to a small structure on a high cliff top, situated in the middle of a valley covered by very similar cliffs, made it more dicey than he liked.  Especially while trying to evade the notice of men who were likely armed with high powered rifles and sub-machine guns. 

 

“Bloody wonderful,” he muttered darkly.  “If I so much as see Sloane, I’m going to fucking kill him.”

 

 

±

 

_“I’m so sorry, Sydney,” he said.  “I never intended for this.”  _

_He even sounded like he meant it.  Bile rose up in her throat, nausea roiling through her gut as he touched her, cupping her head gently with his hand, lifting her up so she could drink from the glass of water he’d brought with him.  _

_“You’re important, you know.  I would never cause you physical harm, if I could help it.”  So kind.  So sincere.  _

_She swallowed the water because she had to, her body so starved from the drug that it took all her willpower not to gulp it down greedily.  She savored it, instead.  Cold and wet, it slid down her throat like the smoothest wine, soothing everywhere it touched.  He held the glass for her carefully, allowing her to drink as much as she wanted.  When she started to feel sick, when she knew if she drank anymore, she’d throw it all back up, she stopped, holding one last swallow inside her mouth.  She pulled her head back, and he let her.  His hand slid away, the glass following.  _

_“You need to regain your strength, Sydney.”  Now he sounded like an admonishing parent, as if her current condition was of her own making, and nothing of his.  “The Prophecy waits for your part in it, a part you can’t possibly play as you are.  I need you, and you _will_ regain your strength.  You will help me.”_

_He leaned down, smiling, just as if he wasn’t responsible for hundreds, thousands of deaths as one of the leaders of the Alliance.  The bastard.  He reached out to brush her hair back from her forehead, and she spit her last swallow of water into his face._

_He jerked back, smile gone, fatherly demeanor vanished, for the moment.  He took a clean white handkerchief from his pocket, and slowly wiped his face.  _

_“You bastard,” she said, trying to shout it at him.  It came out as a croak, a whisper, but loud enough that he heard.  “You tried to kill me!”_

_Arvin Sloane folded up the handkerchief and replaced it into his pocket.  He looked at her now with cold eyes.  She knew that look very well.  _

_“I’ve explained to you, Sydney, I would never wish you ill.  So long as you do what I require, no more harm will be inflicted.  The effect the drug had on your body could never have been anticipated, by neither me nor my men.”_

_“…don’t believe you,” she whispered.  “Hurt me.  Beat…tortured…”_

_The cold look softened with pity, and it infuriated her.  The numbness, at least, was fading.  She could feel angry now, and that was good.  _

_“I didn’t have you beaten or tortured, Sydney.  Is that what you think?  God, you’re practically a daughter to me!”_

_“No…” she argued, but he didn’t listen.  Sloane shook his head sadly._

_“If we had known, ahead of time, we could have used something else, something less…potent, less dangerous.  But I wanted you out for the duration of our journey, and the fact is, we didn’t know.  Because you didn’t see fit to inform me, your superior.  But then, I wasn’t really, was I?”  He smiled bitterly.  “You were working against me all the while, along with my friend, your father, the ever-loyal Jack Bristow.  You betrayed me, Sydney, and now you reap the consequences.”_

_She was shaking her head, so angry she wanted to hit him, kick him, cut out his lying tongue.  She wanted to kill the son of a bitch._

_“You betrayed us!” she hissed, and Sloane laughed.  “You’re responsible.”  She gasped the words, feeling her brief moment of strength fading, fast.  “You don’t like it, but you are.  I nearly died!”_

_“_I _betrayed _you_?” he said incredulously.  “Poor Sydney.  I’m sure it comforts you to believe that.  But the truth is, you have only yourself to blame for your current situation.  If you and your father had not forced my hand, we would not be here now.  If you had been honest with me, I would have administered you a different drug.”  _

_He smiled down at her with that same pitying expression, while she struggled and strained against the ropes binding her, cutting into her limbs.  Blood trickled down her arms, and still she fought and twisted._

_“You have many reasons to hate me, Sydney,” he said softly, “but this is not one of them.  You can’t blame me for the loss of your child.”_

_She went suddenly still, even the breath freezing in her lungs.  His words slammed into her with more force than a physical blow.  It reverberated through her, that word.  _Child_…  _

_It couldn’t be true!  She couldn’t be…couldn’t have been…  She stared up at him, saw the realization dawn on him that she hadn’t known.  Saw the lines of his face deepen with a shock that mirrored her own._

_“You’re lying,” she gasped desperately._

_Sloane shook his head.  “I wish I were.  I’m so sorry, Sydney.  Sorry you didn’t know.  The drug…it isn’t a medication that mixes well with pregnancy.  You miscarried on the flight here, hemorrhaging badly.  It’s why you’re so weak.  You _did_ nearly die.”_

_Tears she couldn’t afford to spill filled her eyes, despair clogging her throat.  A baby!  She thought frantically, counting back.  She’d been late, missed a month.  But that wasn’t unusual for her, not in the stressful life she led.  But… she’d also been sick lately, run down, always tired.  And emotional.  She remembered crying on Weiss’s shoulder.  _

_“Oh, my God,” she whispered.  _

_It was true.  Deep down, in her heart, she knew it.  She could feel the ache -- the loss -- in her body.  In her soul._

_Dear Lord, she’d been carrying a child.  _Sark’s_ child.  She closed her eyes, fighting back the tears.  Sloane’s hand on her shoulder, squeezing in sympathy, brought a rush of rage to overpower despair.  She opened her eyes, glared at him with every ounce of hatred she felt._

_“I’m going to get free of here, Sloane,” she said clearly, “and I’m going to kill you.”_

_“Oh, Sydney.”  He smiled, shook his head.  He crossed back to the door, blocked the sliver of light with his body, enclosed her in bleak darkness again.  “No, you won’t,” he said.  _

_And he shut the door._

±

 

Sark watched Jack and Irina checking over the straps to their chutes.  The two had maintained a silent truce since the exchange on the bluff, for which he was thankful.  When distributing weapons and gear, Jack had even handed her an MP5K without a word.  Impressive, because Sark had expected an argument over that. 

 

The four engines of the C-17 _Globemaster III _were a great deal louder than the posh private jet in which they’d arrived in Greece.  Nor was it as sleek and sexy an aircraft as it’s civilian counterpart.  But what the two hundred and fifty million dollar plane lacked in style, it more than made up for in utilitarian usefulness.  The Talbot _Learjet_, for instance, could never have served as a jump ship. 

 

“Ready?”  Sark yelled the question over the powerful engines.  Both Jack and Irina nodded, for once in agreement.  Perhaps they were capable of putting aside their differences to help Sydney, after all.  “Our satellite scans indicate a dozen warm bodies in the monastery.  Half of those appear to be manning the walls.  We can assume that two inside are Sloane and Sydney.”  _God, _he thought, _let one of them be Sydney!  _

“Irina and I will take care of the guards,” Jack yelled back.  “You go on ahead and get Sydney.  We’ll catch up.”

 

_Ah, _thought Sark, amused once again.  He wasn’t surprised by Jack’s seeming altruism in allowing Sark to go in after Sydney first.  The other man wasn’t willing to allow Irina out of his sight, and since two people were preferable to take out the guards, he’d opted for that.  From the glance Irina shot Jack, she had figured it out, too.  She shrugged, smiled. 

 

“Fine by me,” she agreed readily enough.

 

“Fine!” said Sark, and gave the Jumpmaster a nod.  He moved into position at the jump door, hands on the metal sides of the doorway, face leaned out into the cold night air whipping past the fast moving C-17.  He was ready, waiting for the Jumpmaster’s signal.

 

“Go!”

 

And he was gone, freefalling through the darkness, the blue black of night surrounding him on all sides. 

 

He’d forgotten what a rush night drops could be.  He fell thousands of feet through the air, fresh adrenaline coursing through his already over extended body.  When he pulled his ripcord, the monastery walls visible below him with the aid of his night goggles, his chute worked perfectly.  Now, his descent unavoidably slowed, he waited tensely to be noticed by Sloane’s guards, for the first bullet to whip past him. 

 

 

The guard to his left, closest of the two, had indeed shifted toward him.  Sark could see him clearly, but didn’t want to alert the others, if he could help it.  At least not until Jack and Irina had also landed.  He watched the man hesitate, then begin walking toward him.  Moving silently, he moved away from the outer wall before the guard was close enough to see him clearly, picking a position obscured by the shadows of the crumbling structure of the monastery.  He lowered the gun from his shoulder, and drew a knife instead. 

 

Something, a sound maybe, made the guard pause a few feet before reaching Sark’s position.  He turned, looking up to the sky, and his body went stiff.  He’d seen one of the others.  Sark moved.  Before the man could open his mouth to call a warning, before he could finish the motion of lifting his gun to shoot one of the parachuters down, Sark wrapped a gloved hand over his mouth, and shoved the knife into the base of his skull, all the way to the hilt.  It was quicker, quieter, and certainly less messy than cutting the jugular.  He held the dead man as his body convulsed, dragging him clear just as Jack landed.  Irina was only moments behind him. 

 

Jack touched his shoulder while Irina detached her chute.  He met Sark’s eyes, then gestured to the door just behind them.  His meaning was clear.  _We’ve got this.  Get going!_  Then he was gone, moving swiftly down the wall toward the next guard.

 

Sark didn’t waste any time, either.  Sydney was waiting for him.

 

±

 

_Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes no matter how she tried to stop them.  She didn’t sob, didn’t make a sound in the darkness of her prison.  But the tears continued to trickle down her temples and into her hair.  She kept telling herself that this was impossible, all of it.  She couldn’t really be here, at the mercy of the man she hated most.  She couldn’t be tied down to a stone slab, not knowing if she would ever escape, ever see her loved ones again.  _

_She couldn’t have been pregnant._

_She couldn’t have miscarried._

_But she was, she had, the nightmare was real.  She wanted to cradle her abdomen with her hands, the place where she had so recently carried a life inside of her, but the ropes still held her securely.  _

_Would it have been a boy?  A little tow headed boy with curly hair?  Brilliant blue eyes to match his father’s?  Or a girl.  A tiny elfin girl with a dimpled smile and the requisite pig tails.  _Oh, God.

_ Sydney closed her eyes, trying valiantly to shut out the images of what might have been.  She couldn’t bear to think of it, to picture it, to see Sark looking back at her from the phantom eyes of a dead child.  _

_Sark.  How was she going to tell him?  What would he say?  Did he even want children?  Would he be sad, angry, or secretly relieved?  Was he on his way here, right now, to rescue her?  Would she ever see him again?  _

_Everywhere her mind turned were questions she couldn’t bear to face, for fear of the answers.  And she had nothing to do in the dark, but think of them.  One question in particular rose up to the surface above all others.  A question she hadn’t looked at closely enough to ask, even of herself.  A question that filled her with aching despair, desperate hope, terrible fear.  _

_She’d miscarried.  Violently, Sloane had said.  And as a captive, she hadn’t been given proper medical care.  What if…what if she couldn’t get pregnant ever again?  What if she could never have children?_

_Sydney bit her lip to hold back the sob that welled in her throat.  Hard enough to hurt, to taste blood in her mouth.  She couldn’t face those questions yet, not here.  Not now.  She focused her mind instead on Sark, and her father.  She knew them.  Surely they were looking for her.  Maybe even on their way here, now.  _

And if they aren’t?_  It was a small, nagging voice in her head.  The voice that seemed to drag her back from hope, constantly pulling her down into desolation.  She ruthlessly shoved it aside.  She was a trained agent.  She could damn well rescue herself, if need be._

_She twisted at her bonds again, feeling the ropes scrape over skin that was now slick with blood from the abrasions she’d already suffered.  It hurt, but it was nothing compared to her inner anguish.  She could feel fresh blood trickling like warm tears down her arms as the ropes bit into her flesh, but she would not give up.  She would get herself free, and Sloane would pay for everything he’d done.  The bastard.  _

_Focusing on her anger helped.  She couldn’t be sure, but it definitely felt as though the rope binding her left wrist and arm was looser.  She twisted harder, clenching her jaw against the pain…and with an abrading scrape that took off at least three layers of skin, that hand slipped free.   She bit back a sob, cradling the stinging appendage to her chest for a moment, waiting for the pain to fade.  _Thank God, thank God,_ she thought fervently.  She forced herself not to think about the rest of the task which lay before her.  Not to wonder about the number of armed guards Sloane had on hand, or how she was going to get out of this pitch black room.  _

One thing at a time, Syd, _she told herself, and reaching up, went to work at freeing her right hand._

±

Sark discarded his night vision goggles as soon as he entered the building.  The walls were lined with torchlight.  _Torches, _he thought incredulously_, in the twenty-first century.  _He shook his head.  Maybe Sloane hadn’t bothered having a generator flown in. 

 

He paused just inside the door, adjusted the radio ear piece that connected him with CIA Agent Eric Weiss, Sydney’s one time handler, and the man who had commandeered a satellite to obtain real time infra red images of this area.  It was he who had sent them the C-17 aircraft for the drop, per Jack’s request.

 

“Weiss,” Sark said in a barely audible undertone.  “I’m in.” 

 

“I’ve got you by the side entrance,” he heard in his ear.  “You’re clear up until the end of the hall.  One guard at the T section, right hand corridor.”

 

Sark didn’t bother much with stealth.  The ancient monastery wasn’t exactly riddled with appropriate nooks and crannies for surreptitious movement, and even if it had been, he wasn’t so sure he’d have used them.  Part of him, a large part, was angry enough to look for confrontation.  Ever since Jack Bristow had woken him with that phone call, Sark wanted to lash out, to punish, to seek vengeance for any harm inflicted to Sydney.  And this was his opportunity. 

 

 

He didn’t slow at the T intersection.  His gate never varied.  He simply rounded the left hand corner with the butt of his MP5K raised, and brought it down hard on the shocked face of Sloane’s first guard.  The man never even got his gun up.  He fell heavily, out if not dead.  A hard blow to the temple was often fatal. 

 

Sark confiscated the man’s ammunition, just in case, doing a quick, cursory search of the body.  No sense leaving weaponry behind to be used against him. 

 

“OK, good,” came Weiss’s voice in his ear, “next up we have two more guards at the end of the hall.  Careful, they might be able to see you from their current position.  Looks like Sloane’s ignoring the rest of the monastery, and just guarding the path to Sydney.”

 

“She’s still stationary?” Sark asked under his breath.  He was already up and moving, fast, direct and lacking in any subtlety, the business end of his submachine gun pointed to the end of the hall.

 

“Yeah….look, why don’t you slow down, the way you’re moving those guards will see you for sure…”

 

“Good,” said Sark coldly, just as one of the men heard him and looked back over his shoulder. 

 

He said something to his companion, and both men swung toward him, raising M11 submachine guns to fire.  But Sark’s was already trained on them.  He fired a three round burst into the nearest man, stepping sideways and dropping down to one knee as the second guard sent a spray of gunfire down the hall.  Stone chipped and spit into the air as rounds hit the wall, floor, and ceiling, the muzzle swinging wild and high as the guard flew back, hit by Sark’s second three round burst. 

 

“Jesus Christ, Sark!”  Weiss was yelling into his ear.  “What the _fuck_ are you doing?  Ever heard of using a little caution?  You’re not going to do Sydney any good if you’re dead, you stupid…” 

 

Sark reached up and shut the radio off.  Only one guard and Sloane remained, and he hardly needed Weiss to tell him where they were.  This intersection led down a set of stone stairs, past the kitchens and into the cellars, he thought.  To Sydney, and the room Sloane was holding her prisoner in.  He would be there, too, Sark was sure.  And so would the final guard, a last, desperate barrier between Sloane and the fate he justly deserved. 

 

Sark hoped Hell was ready and waiting.

 

Something wet trickled down his temple as he stood and stepped over the bodies; he brushed it away with a gloved hand, noted the faint stinging sensation from just beneath his hairline with a detached kind of annoyance.  A piece of flying stone must have cut him, but he ignored the wound for now.  So long as it didn’t drip into his eyes, it didn’t concern him. 

 

Not entirely without reason, he stopped at the head of the stairs and pulled a flash grenade from his flak jacket.  He pulled the pin, counted off three seconds, threw it down the stairs.  He averted his face, closing his eyes and plugging his ears.  He heard and felt the concussion as it went off, was up and moving before the floor had stopped vibrating. 

 

Sloane’s last guard was on his knees in front of a what looked like a steel reinforced door, hands covering his eyes.  Sark didn’t even hesitate.  Sloane already knew he was coming.  He pulled his SIG from its holster and killed the last guard with a double tap to the head. 

 

He found the key to the door in the dead man’s pocket.  He stood, heart pounding, almost afraid to fit the key to the lock.  What if Sloane had killed her?  That he would use her as a hostage for his own life, Sark had no doubt.  But what if, knowing he was done, knowing he couldn’t escape, he’d already delivered the final blow, and killed Sydney? 

 

He took a deep breath, willing himself to calm.  He closed his eyes, tried to find that cold, detached center of himself.  The place he’d always lived until Sydney entered his life.  He couldn’t afford to be emotional now.  Couldn’t afford the fear, or the rage that went with it. 

 

“Keep it bloody together,” he told himself out loud, and fit the key to the lock.

 

He pushed the door open, his MP5K slung over his shoulder in favor of the better accuracy of his pistol.  He held the SIG in a dual handed grip, shoving his way past the door with his shoulders.  And stopped dead. 

 

He thought he’d prepared himself for anything, thought that no matter what he found on the other side of that door, he’d be able to handle it calmly, professionally.  Like the soldier he was trained to be. 

 

He’d been wrong.

 

Whatever he’d expected, this wasn’t it.  It wasn’t Sloane in control at all, but Sydney.  She was leaning against a stone table, clearly unable to stand without its aid, and blood covered her arms.  He could see the deep rope abrasions on her wrists and forearms from here.  Her face was colorless, the skin so drawn and pale she might have passed for a ghost, instead of a living, breathing woman.  And she held a .45 caliber Smith &amp; Wesson in her hands.  Sloane was slumped on the floor, his back supported by the wall behind him, and half his face was covered in blood from his obviously broken nose.  He was looking up at Sydney with a mixture of stunned disbelief, pain, and fear. 

 

And she stared back at him with pure, unadulterated hatred. 

 

“Sydney…” Sark said. 

 

 

He’d saved her, then.  That night, still so crystal clear in his mind, was the beginning of the end for Sark.  The end of his life as he knew it.  And the beginning of something more. 

 

Sloane was pleading with her, his voice even and reasonable, almost fatherly.  “Sydney, think about this.  You can’t kill me.  I’ve done so much for you!  I’ve nurtured you, trained you, prepared you for everything that you are destined to be.”

 

Her hands had begun to shake, and Sark knew she wouldn’t be able to hold the gun up much longer.  She’d either have to fire, or lower the weapon.

 

“Nurtured me?” she asked in a voice so furious it swept him with chills to hear it.  Even in Rome, faced with  the man who’d murdered her former lover, she hadn’t sounded like this.  “Is that what you call what you’ve done?  Look at me, Sloane!”

 

_Enough,_ thought Sark, and raised his gun.  _If one of us is going to kill Sloane, it won’t be Sydney._

“Sark!  Don’t you dare!”  Now she took notice of him, still not looking his direction, but her voice whiplash sharp with the crack of command.  “Not this time.”

 

“Sydney…” he tried again.  She wouldn’t let him. 

 

“No,” she said, and slowly straightened away from the stone slab.  “You don’t know what he’s done.  To me.  To us.”  He wondered at the way her voice trembled with unshed tears.  Watched as she took one tremulous step forward, and then another, sucking air through her teeth as if in great pain.  He went to go to her, to hold her up, support her, take the bloody gun from her fingers...

 

“_Don’t touch me!_”

 

He froze, stopped still just by the tone of her voice.  Sloane started to laugh, and Sark glanced at him uneasily.  Sydney kept moving toward the other man, one slow step at a time.  What the hell was she planning on doing?  She could shoot him from here, if she wanted to. 

 

Sloane’s laugh unnerved him.  It carried an edge of instability, of wildness.

 

“Sark…_Sark_ is here to rescue you, Sydney,” he said, his voice mocking, as if she wasn’t still holding a gun on him.  “How touching.”

 

Sark could see a pool of blood spreading beneath Sloane’s left leg, and realized then that Sydney had already shot him once.  Immobilized him, to be precise.

 

“I didn’t realize that the two of you were so close, but I can see now that you are.  He looks worried, Sydney.  About you.” 

 

She stopped right in front of him, slowly lowering herself down to kneel at eye level.  Sark tensed, taking a step to the side so he’d have a clear shot if Sloane tried anything.  But he just kept talking.

 

“How close are you?  Are you friends?  Lovers?” 

 

Sydney flinched, and Sark’s brow knit in confusion.  He was missing something here, something important.  He could feel it. 

 

“You are, aren’t you?” said Sloane softly.  He smiled, as if he’d found the answer to some plaguing question.  “Are you going to tell him?” he asked, and it was as if Sark wasn’t even in the room. 

 

There was something, an air of intimacy between Sydney and Sloane that excluded him.  She looked Sloane dead in the eye, and lifted the muzzle of the gun to his head.  The older man kept watching her, kept smiling like he didn’t really believe she’d do it.  Sydney leaned down, whispered words that Sark barely caught.

 

“I told you I’d kill you.” 

 

Her finger tightened, and Sark lunged. 

 

“Sydney, no!!” 

 

But it was too late.  The sound of the gunshot reverberated around the stone walls as blood, bone, and brains splattered the room.  Splattered them both.  He felt the droplets hit his face, saw the ichor spray Sydney. 

 

She just sat there, unmoving, staring at Sloane’s headless corpse.  Sark stood frozen for a timeless moment, wide eyed and disbelieving of what she’d just done.  _My God_, was all he could think.  _How could I have let her do that?_

After a moment, he forced his legs into motion.  He crossed to her, gently pried to gun from nerveless fingers.  He could see the glassy look of shock in her eyes, but wasn’t sure what it was from.  Murdering Sloane, or the injuries she’d sustained? 

 

He was murmuring words, meaningless phrases meant to sooth, to comfort.  _It’s all right, I’m here now, c’mon Sydney, let me help you up, c’mon, your parents are here, too, they should be here any moment, come here…_ 

 

He tossed the Smith aside, holstered his SIG, and swung her up into his arms.  It worried him, how light and frail she seemed.  Up close, she looked even worse than he’d first imagined.  The skin around her eyes was dark as though bruised, her lips parched and chapped, and the abrasions on her arms deep and scabbed beneath the freshly weeping blood.  All of her strength seemed to have suddenly fled, and she was crying.  Silently.  Uncontrollably.  He hid his worry, cradling her to his chest.  Her arms squeezed around his neck, and she buried her face against him. 

 

Just then Jack and Irina came pounding into the room, out of breath, weapons drawn.  They stopped, stared.  Looked from Sloane, to Sark and Sydney.  Jack looked like he wanted to say something, made an abortive move toward them, his eyes on his daughter, and Sark shook his head just as Irina grabbed his arm.  Together, mother and father watched silently as he bore their weeping daughter past them.

 

“It’s all right, it’s all over now…” he murmured into her hair.  He carried her out of that room with it’s blood painted walls, away from Sloane.  “Shh, Sydney, it’s over.”

 

But he didn’t really think it was.

_Los Angeles, California_

They tried to make him leave.  Two hours after Sydney was admitted into a hospital in L.A., an hour after Jack had been called back to speak with the doctor, two men approached him as he paced the waiting area, grimacing his way through his fourth truly terrible cup of coffee.  A pair of CIA gorillas in suits, with stone golem faces and official sounding words. 

 

First he laughed in their faces.

 

Then he told them if they tried to force the issue, he’d happily kill them both and claim self defense.  They were, after all, a great deal larger and more threatening seeming than he.  Physically, at any rate.

 

At least one of them had read his dossier, because they exchanged a glance, looking somewhat more unsure than they had just moments before, and backed off.  They didn’t leave.  One pulled out a cell phone and had a hushed conversation with his superior.  After that, they both settled back and watched him pace.  Sark didn’t mind, so long as they maintained their distance.

 

He wasn’t bloody leaving, and the CIA with their load of bollocks about “classified events” and “official sanction” could shove it up their collective arse. 

 

“Sark.” 

 

It was Jack, standing just inside the waiting room entrance.  He looked…impassive, his face carefully blank.  _Oh, God,_ thought Sark, and cleared his own expression of emotion.  It was bad, it had to be, for Jack to look like that.

 

He couldn’t bring himself to ask how she was, but instead he crossed to Jack and looked him squarely, stoically in the eye.  He wouldn’t shirk away from it. 

 

“Sydney’s going to be all right.”

 

“She’s…what?” 

 

It caught him off guard, completely.  If she was all right, where was Jack’s relief, his happiness?  However he tried to keep such things from showing, Bristow simply wasn’t capable where his daughter was concerned.  And so Sark was flummoxed.  _What the hell is wrong with him?_  He looked around, half expecting to see Irina lurking about the room.  She’d had to decline joining them for the trip to the U.S., since she was still a political criminal, but her presence would have explained Jack’s attitude. 

 

But of course, she wasn’t there.  He looked back at the other man, frowned. 

 

“Look, Bristow, I’ve already gone round with the hospital staff and these two gormless idiots—” he jerked his head at the CIA goons behind him, “—about the acceptability of my presence.  I may not be Sydney’s family, but I have just as much fucking right to be here as you.”  _More,_ he thought, but was wise enough not to say.

 

To his endless surprise, Jack didn’t even argue.

 

“Sark…look, maybe you should sit down.” 

 

_Ah, fuck.  _“No.  I think I’ll stand, thanks.  Just tell me, Jack.”

 

The other man took a deep breath, like a diver going under for a long swim.  “Sydney had a miscarriage.”  He paused for a beat.  “She was pregnant when Sloane grabbed her.  The drug he gave her accidentally aborted the child.”

 

Sark stared at him for a full minute.  His paper coffee cup hit the floor, splashing both his shoes and Jack’s with the tepid remains of dark liquid.  Neither man glanced down.  Then he sat, blindly, without checking to see if there was a chair behind him first.  A quick move on Bristow’s part guided him a foot to his left, saving him from an embarrassing fall to the floor.  Sark didn’t even notice. 

 

“Pregnant…” he repeated numbly.  “Ah, Sydney…fuck.  Fuck me.” 

 

And he buried his head in his hands. 

 

Jack sat down beside him, silent for a long time.  Finally, after what could have been ten minutes, or might have been an hour, he cleared his throat.  Sark didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge his presence in any way.

 

“It might be…best,” said Jack quietly, “ if you didn’t see Sydney for awhile.  She’s undergone some severe emotional trauma.  She’ll have to debrief, undergo mandatory counseling, and you’ll have to explain to your own superiors what happened.  The actions you took.”  He paused.  “Sloane’s death.”

 

Sark understood.  They’d decided on the plane, all of them, not to reveal how Sloane had really died.  Sark intended to take full responsibility.  He found Sydney.  Sloane used her as a hostage.  He was forced to kill him.

 

Simple.  Straightforward.  By the book. 

 

“Right,” he said roughly, without looking up.  “I won’t…I won’t contact her until she’s ready.  Look, Jack, could you just give me a moment here?”

 

“…sure.  I need to see Sydney anyway.” 

 

The other man stood up, loitered for a moment.  He cleared his throat, then held out a plain white handkerchief.  Sark took it without a word, without looking up.  He waited until he could no longer hear Jack’s footfalls on the hospital tile. 

 

Only then did he wipe away his tears.

 

_One Month Later,_

_London, England_

 

He’d put it off for as long as humanly possible.  Dragged his feet, avoided the issue, told himself he would take care of it “later”.  Until the day he’d come home to find Nathaniel Collins on his doorstep.  Beside the same 1951 Bentley Mark VI he’d once ridden in as a boy.  It’s silver paint job was washed and waxed to a perfect gleam, even on an overcast London day.

 

Collins, as always, looked impeccable in a pressed silk suit, posture perfectly straight, every hair in place.  Though the hair was a good deal more gray than Sark remembered.  But the blue eyes were every bit as penetrating, and the single lifted brow an admonishment that still, it seemed, had the power to instantly fill him with guilt. 

 

Sark got out of the cab, pulled his coat a bit tighter against the wind. 

 

“So,” said Nathaniel in his low baritone, “you’re out of it.”

 

Sark stepped up onto the sidewalk beside his old friend and mentor.  He took a deep breath, let it out again.

 

“I am, yes,” he said.  “It was time, and I’d had enough.”

 

Nathaniel simply nodded.  Then he said, rather pointedly, “Your mother will be happy to hear.”

 

Sark ran a hand through his hair, bit back frustration.  “Look, Nate, it’s not as though I’ve been shirking it, exactly.  This last bit was…it was bad.  I needed some time before I could step into her parlor.  Time to…”

 

“Wash away the blood?”  Nate looked at him with those penetrating eyes again, and Sark simply nodded.  “She understands, you know.  Knows more about who you are and what you’ve done than you think.  Understands that the title, the manor, the whole package that goes with it, it’s not for you.  She understood that when you left at fifteen.”  Nate looked at him for a long minute.  “You’re her son, Andrew, and even if you never take the Talbot name again, even if you keep your distance and stay “Sark” for the rest of your life, you will always be her son.  She loves you.”

 

It was a long minute before Sark could answer.  “I know,” he said finally.  “And I love her.  That’s why I can’t bring this to her with me.  Just a bit more time, Nate.  A few days.  A week at most, and I’ll come visit.”

 

Nathaniel held out his hand.  “I’ve your word?”

 

Sark took it, clasped it firmly.  “You do.”

 

“Then I’ll be on my way.”  Nathaniel turned, started to climb into the open door of the Bentley.  He hesitated.  “You should probably know, there’s a woman went up to your place about half an hour back.  She didn’t come down again.  A pretty little piece.  Tall, brown hair, American.  Sweet talked the doorman into letting her up.”  He smiled, his blue eyes twinkling.  “Have to admire that, as your doorman’s rather a crusty old bloke.”

 

Sark wasn’t listening.  He was staring up at the closed blinds to his apartment, and his mouth had gone dry.  He swallowed.  _Sydney was there…waiting for him right now.  _“I’ve…got to go, Nate,” he said, without glancing at his friend.  “Later.”  He was already up the steps and past the crusty doorman before Nate could open his mouth to reply.  The older man watched after him for a moment, then closed his mouth.  He smiled.

 

“Thought it might be like that,” he said to himself, and ducked into the car, gesturing the driver away.  _About bloody time,_ he thought, looking forward to sharing this tidbit with Mary Talbot.  She’d be thrilled for her son.

 

±

 

Sydney waited in the dark.  Even as afternoon shadows drifted toward evening, even with the blinds pulled, she didn’t turn on any lights.  She paced Sark’s immaculate apartment, took note of the little details of it.  Tried not to think of why she was here, how he’d react when he saw her.  What she noticed most were the touches of luxury, of money, that seemed at first to be mere extravagance.

 

The countertops in the kitchen were black slate.  The most expensive money could buy, and only of value if the person using the kitchen enjoyed cooking.  She wondered if Sark did, thought back to the few times they’d had the opportunity to share a private meal, and decided that yes, he must.  It would certainly explain his exclusive collection of Danish cookware.  What sort of man paid attention to the pan he cooked in?

 

His living area was sparse.  It held the usual items.  Leather couch, chair, the most up to date home entertainment system.  It was nearly devoid of anything representative of the man who lived there, save for one piece of art.  A large frame picture taking up nearly one entire wall.  Italian, she thought, looking at it.  Modern.  Dark. 

 

She touched the frame lightly, ran her finger down it’s edge, and paused.  There was a switch, barely detectable.  She hesitated, then applied pressure to it.  The picture and accompanying section of wall swung inward smoothly, soundlessly.  And the hidden room it revealed, far from containing all of Sark’s mysterious secrets, held wine instead.  A temperature controlled room filled with wall-to-wall wine racks. 

 

Sydney smiled, pulling the door shut again without entering the room.  _How very Sark._

 

His bedroom was more of the same.  Very little of a personal nature.  No pictures, no piles of mail or personal correspondence, no address book to leaf through.  The bed was huge, a king size piled with blankets and pillows.  It looked like he never slept in it, but a hardcover book lay on the bedside table.  [Book title, by book author].  She picked it up, read the back cover, then opened it to the page he was on and read a paragraph.  _Interesting,_ she thought, and put the book back down. 

 

The room also held a large gun safe, and she paused by it, but couldn’t even begin to guess the combination, and didn’t really want to try. 

 

The closet, of course, was lined with perfectly pressed suits, most of them more expensive than the monthly salary she’d pulled from the CIA.  She smiled, fingering one she remembered very well.  He’d worn it in Rome for their second liaison there.  And he’d still been wearing half of it when he’d pinned her against the wall, and thrust himself inside of her until she’d screamed. 

 

The flash was so vivid, so tactile her breath hitched and her heart accelerated.  She dropped the suit quickly, shut the closet doors.  _Don’t go there Syd, not yet,_ she told herself, and walked quickly from the bedroom.

 

The floors in the kitchen, bathroom, and entryway were all tiled with black granite.  A very masculine choice, she thought with a smile, listening to the soles of her shoes echo as she walked on it.

 

She entered the bathroom and stopped dead, staring.  The bathtub was like nothing she’d ever seen before, not in real life.  It was huge, black marble, and fed by what appeared to be gold plated faucets.  The marble spilled from the high sides of the tub down the three steps that led up to it, until it met the granite of the floor.  If she walked up those steps and peered into it, she could see the jets built into the sides.  _Wow,_ she thought, and nearly lost her balance and fell in, when a familiar voice suddenly whispered into her ear.

 

“Thinking about taking a bath?”

 

She stifled a small scream and fell back, straight into Sark’s arms.  He caught her easily enough, set her on her feet again, and let go.  Quickly. 

 

Disappointment welled within her.  And sadness.  Was this why he hadn’t called?  He didn’t want her anymore?

 

“Sark,” she said swiftly to cover up any awkward silence.  “I’m sorry for just coming up like this, I…”  She stopped, at a loss.  What could she say, what explanation could she give that would make more sense than the truth?  _I was afraid if I knocked, you wouldn’t let me in.  _“…I hope it’s not a problem.”

 

“No,” he said quietly.  “Not a problem, Sydney.”  He paused, peered at her through the darkness.  “How have you been?”

 

She couldn’t quite see his face, and regretted not turning on the lights.  Shadows made his expression impossible to read, and his tone was even, smooth, giving no hint to what he might be feeling.  Her own heart was pounding so hard, she could hear the pulse in her ears.  She twisted her hands together.

 

“I’ve been…I’ve been…”  To her horror, a tear slid down her cheek, and then another, and another.  It made her feel helpless, and angry.  _“Why haven’t you called?  Where have you been?”_  The words burst forth before she could stop them, and they struck Sark like a physical blow.  He actually staggered back a step. 

 

“Wha…?  Didn’t Jack tell you, explain?” he asked.

 

Crying openly now, and powerless to stop it, Sydney lifted her hands.  “Explain what?  I know he told you what happened, about…about the b-baby.  I know you had to leave, you had to come back here and check in, debrief, explain yourself.  But you m-must have finished that weeks ago.  Where have you been, Sark?  Do you have any idea what I’ve been through?  Do you even care?  Or did the idea of fathering a child scare you that damn much?”

 

“Sydney, no!  I wasn’t, I’m not…_fuck_!” 

 

He closed the space between them and grabbed her by the arms, resisted the urge to shake her in his frustration. 

 

“It threw me, I’m not denying that.  The idea that you’d been carrying our child.  Yours and mine.  But that…that wasn’t… Sydney, _you lost the baby_.  And I can’t even begin to imagine what pain you must have gone through, must still be going through.  I didn’t call because --because I thought you might need time.  Away from me.”

 

She stared at him incredulously through her tears.  “Why would you even think that?  Sark, I love you.  You were the father of my child.  I needed you then more than I’ve ever needed anyone in my entire life!”

 

And he hadn’t been there.  She might as well have hurled the words at him like a knife, they cut so deeply.  He stared at her.

 

“Oh, God.”  And he crushed her to him, holding her tightly because he was afraid if he didn’t, she’d turn around and he leave him, like he deserved.  “Sydney, I’m so sorry, so, so sorry.  Jack said you’d need time, and I thought…I thought that meant I should let you come to me.  I’ve never been through anything like this before, and I thought my presence might remind you, might make everything harder.  I’m so sorry.”

 

And he just held her, stroking a hand over her hair and praying to God that he hadn’t ruined things irreparably.

 

He waited, and after a time, she spoke. 

 

“So, you still…you want to…make this work?”

 

“God, yes!” he said, relief flooding through him.  He felt a little like crying himself, but didn’t.  “Of course I do.  I love you, you know.”  He smiled into her hair.  “In case that wasn’t yet clear.”

 

He lifted his head, cupping her face in his hands.  “And I promise to always be there for you when you need me.  God, Sydney, why do you think I went after you in the first place?” 

 

He kissed her tear streaked face, her forehead, and finally her mouth.  It was soft, and gentle, and coaxing.  A kiss meant to reassure her of his feelings, not to be passionate.  She returned it after a moment, her hands closing over his arms, holding on as if for dear life.  He pulled back, rested his head against hers. 

 

“Why don’t I pour us some wine?  You could take bath, relax.  I’ll put on some music, something soft and soothing, and make us dinner.”

 

She smiled, and he nearly cheered.  “Ok.  It sounds…good.  Great, really.”  She glanced at the marble tub, and the smile became a grin.  “You have the most amazing bathtub I’ve ever seen.”

 

He started her bath water, provided her with towels, a robe that would be too big since it was sized for him, and showed her where he kept things like bath soaps and shampoo.  Then he kissed her, and left to pick out the wine. 

 

He settled on a 1997 Beringer Merlot.  It was rich and full flavored, and heady.  He thought perhaps she needed something of its ilk.  He poured two glasses, deciding on the Waterford crystal.  He enjoyed drinking fine wines in equally fine glassware.  It was something of an insult to the wine, otherwise. 

 

By the time he delivered her glass and the rest of the bottle for her, she was submersed in steaming water, enjoying the relaxing pulse of the jets.  Her eyes were closed, and she’d chosen to light the few candles he kept in the cupboard.  He was tempted, sorely tempted, to join her. 

 

But he thought better of it.  Best to cook dinner first.  Let her relax, eat, rest.  Everything else could wait.  Damn it.

 

He delivered the wine, kissed her brow, and left. 

 

 

And, he realized suddenly, he was nervous.  He was, for the first time, allowing someone else into his life.  He picked up his own glass of wine, took a drink.  And turned at a sudden sound behind him. 

 

Sydney was standing there, dwarfed in the robe, a hesitant smile on her face.  She held both her own glass of wine and the bottle.  Her hair was wet, hanging loose around her shoulders. 

 

His first thought, shameful as it might be, was to wonder what, if anything, she was wearing under the robe.  _His _robe.  His mind flashed to an image of her, naked in his bed, and dinner was instantly, utterly forgotten.

 

“It smells wonderful,” she said, smiling. 

 

He blinked.  “What?”  And actually blushed.  Damn it.  “Oh, yes.  Dinner.  It’s nothing really, just a simple…” 

 

He trailed off, because she was walking toward him, a different kind of smile curving her lips, and one he recognized.  Predatory.  The same one she’d worn, once, when she’d straddled him on a hotel bed.  He felt himself grow hard, couldn’t remember what he’d been saying a moment ago.

 

He cleared his throat.  Watched as she set the wine bottle on the table behind him, watched her drain what was left of her glass.  Her tongue flicked out to lick the taste from her lips, and his mouth went dry.  She shot him a sultry look from under her lashes, and slowly slipped the robe down her shoulders, shook back her hair. 

 

“Maybe,” she said softly, “dinner can wait.”

 

_Hell, yes._

He grabbed the tie to the robe, used it to pull her against him.  She just smiled, touched his face with her hands, ran fingers back through his hair.  His hands splayed over her abdomen, and their eyes met. 

 

“Are you sure you’re ready?” he whispered. 

 

She didn’t even hesitate, but reached up and kissed him, open mouthed, her tongue sliding sensuously over his.  The last knot of worry dissolved in his gut, and he gave himself over to her.  The Merlot was a rich, heady taste on her lips, on his, on their mingled breath.  Her fingers played with his hair, trailed down to his shoulders, dug into his flesh through the thin silk of his shirt as her body rocked against him.  He untied the robe, slipped his hands inside it. 

 

She wasn’t wearing anything underneath, and the fact only heightened his need for her.  She gasped into his mouth when he touched her, stroked hands over flesh still hot and damp from the bath.  She grabbed his shirt, pulling it free of his slacks with quick, almost frantic motions. 

 

“I was so afraid you didn’t want me anymore,” she whispered, as his mouth trailed down the curve of her neck, settling on the spot he knew would drive her wild.  He cupped her breast in his hand, grazed the nipple with his thumb.  She bit her lip, arched into him. 

 

“How could you think that, even for a moment?” he admonished, and flicked his tongue out, laving it over the sensitive flesh just above her collar bone.  She shuddered, gave up on undoing his shirt, and yanked it open instead, scattering buttons.  He didn’t give a damn.  Her hands began fumbling with his belt.  Her breathing was no longer steady, and neither were her legs. 

 

“You’re an ache inside of me,” he continued, moving up her neck, pulling her earlobe between his teeth to flick it with his tongue.  He released it a moment later, filled his empty hand with her other breast.  The robe fell forgotten to the floor. 

 

“I see you, and I _need_.”  He circled both nipples with his thumbs, stroked, and pinched until she whimpered.  One hand ran down her body in feather light caresses, slipped between her thighs to find her already wet, already ready. 

 

“I dream of ways to get you naked, and wanting, and screaming my name.”   He stroked the cleft between her legs, slipped two fingers inside of her, watched her eyes go dark.  He held her up with his other hand splayed across her back, stroked those two fingers in and out until her breath came in short gasps, her head thrown back.  Pressed his thumb into that hardened nubbin of flesh until her nails bit crescents into his shoulders.  She still didn’t scream, didn’t moan, didn’t give in to the pleasure he knew she was feeling.  He stroked faster, harder, his thumb circling her clitoris, practically demanding that she come.  He knew her body well, now, was able to judge it down to the second. 

 

“Come for me, Sydney.  Only for me.”  And he kissed her, at the same moment thrusting as hard and deep as he could.  He felt it break over her, felt the shudder wrack her body, heard her sob into his mouth. 

 

_Jesus, watching her come made him hard._  Painfully so. 

 

She finally got his belt free a moment later, and his slacks slipped down his waist to pool at his feet.  He stepped free of them, kicked them aside without looking away from her.  And sucked in a sudden, sharp breath when she fastened her mouth to one of his nipples.  She was a wild, wanton thing in his arms, licking, biting, stroking with her hands.  He reached behind her, lifted until she could wrap her legs around his waist. 

 

Her mouth found his again, her tongue entangling, stroking until he almost couldn’t stand, legs trembling, her hips rubbing up and down against him in torturous little movements.  He groaned, staggering toward the bedroom.  Wondered if they would make it.  When she reached a hand down between them, pulled him free of his briefs, he knew they wouldn’t. 

 

He was powerless to stop her when she lifted herself up, slid down over him, so slick and hot and wet, his legs crumbled beneath him.  He went down on his knees, but it didn’t matter.  She was already moving above him, whispering in his ear, squeezing him until his jaw locked to keep from screaming. 

 

“Come for me, Sark.  Only for me,” she breathed, moving faster, harder.  His hands grabbed her hips, but it didn’t slow her in the slightest.

 

“Wait…” he gasped, but she didn’t. 

 

_Jesus_, she didn’t. 

 

The muscles of his shoulders and neck corded, his head thrown back as the climax rippled through him.  He didn’t know what he said, what sound he might have made, or screamed, as his seed spilled inside of her.  All that mattered was that wave of pleasure cresting over him in an endless tide.  She kept up for a few more strokes, and then she was shuddering and gasping with him, her body squeezing him like a fist. 

 

He groaned, collapsed completely to the floor still entangled with her, trying to catch his breath.  _Good Christ,_ he thought dimly.  _And I was worried about her handling sex again?_

“I think,” he said aloud, between breaths, “you’ve killed me.  I now know _exactly_ why the French refer to orgasm as the ‘little death’.” 

 

She giggled, burying her face against his chest.  He closed his eyes, holding her, relieved, so utterly relieved, to hear that sound.  He’d been afraid, after Sloane, never to hear it again. 

 

But she was going to be fine.  And so was he.  He stroked a hand over her hair, wondered if now might be a good time to tell her.  And the words left his mouth before he could really decide.

 

“I’ve left MI-6,” he said.  “Permanently.  I handed in my resignation last week.  I’m done.”

 

She went still in his arms, not saying a word.  He waited, almost holding his breath, wondering if he ought to explain further. 

 

“Why?” she said finally, still not looking at him.  Her hand was tracing circles on his skin.  He sighed.

 

“I can’t do it anymore, Sydney.  In order to be an effective agent, especially a deep cover operative, like me, you have to have your head in the game one hundred and ten percent, all of the time.  And I don’t have that, not anymore.”

 

She was silent again for a time.  Then, “Because of me, of us?”

 

“To be blunt, yes.  I worry about you too much.  And when something happens like what did, with Sloane…”  His throat closed up and he stopped talking for a minute.  She waited.  “Well, we’re just damn lucky we’re all still alive, that’s all.  I can’t separate the professional from the personal any longer, and that makes the game too dangerous to play.” 

 

He couldn’t sit still anymore, and sat up, dislodging her.  He wouldn’t look at her face, but stretched out fingers and snagged his slacks to pull back on. 

 

“And I can’t settle for a desk job.  I’m not built for that.”  He stood up, belted his slacks, was aware, peripherally, of Sydney reaching for the discarded robe.  “So I left.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but I’ve got rather a lot of money put away, and I thought…” he paused, cleared his throat, “…I thought, maybe I’d come to L.A. for awhile.  Try my hand at sunshine and sandy beaches.”

 

He forced himself to face her, then, to look her in the eye.  But he couldn’t, because her head was bent and she was examining the carpet as if it were the most interesting thing in the universe. 

 

He couldn’t help it.  Anger leaped up to pound through his system.  He frowned, turned abruptly away before he said or did something regrettable.  If she didn’t want him to come, fine…

 

“I’ve left the CIA,” she said suddenly, from behind him.  He stopped halfway to the kitchen, turned back around.  She smiled faintly.  “I worry about you too much.  And…and the truth is, there isn’t really a reason for me to be in the CIA anymore.  SD-6 is gone.  Sloane is…Sloane is dead.” 

 

She looked down at her hands, and Sark knew she was seeing them splattered with blood.  He crossed over, knelt beside her on the carpet.  Took her hands in his. 

 

“It’s all right,” he said softly.  “So we’re both free agents.  We’ll go somewhere, start something new together.  Who knows?  Maybe we’ll even have normal lives.”

 

She looked at him with tears glimmering in her eyes.  “Really?”

 

He pulled her into his arms.  “Really.  No more illusions, Sydney.  No more shadows.  It’s over.”

 

_::_ _Il finale::_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
